Jeanne Gang updates Freud: Will Tell - Not Ask - "What Mammals Want" at the Logan Center

Sigmund Freud finally admitted he didn't have a clue . . .

The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is 'What does a woman want?'

Was it that he didn't know or that, push to shove, he wasn't all that curious?

Alexander Pope wrote, �The proper study of Mankind is Man� but his words became less an invocation for deepening human knowledge than a license for an geometrically accelerating stream of narcissistic rationalizations for our appetites and aggressions.  Now that our technology is giving us an unprecedented and frightening domain over the earth's ecologies, might we be better off, as we send species after species hurling towards extinction,  spending a little less time in infatuated self-contemplation and a lot more studying the living things with which we share not just the world but the fundamentals of our animal nature?

But I digress.

Studio Gang/s Peoples Gas Pavilion, inspired by a tortoise's shell,
at the Lincoln Park Nature Boardwalk

To sell a great story, a great headline is half the battle, and architect Jeanne Gang has certainly picked a provocative one for her April 28th lecture at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts on the University of Chicago campus.  The flyer, shown at the top of this post, sends mixed signals.  First it says seating will be first-come, first served, and then in the very next paragraph asks us us to click to respond to the invitation by April 23rd.  The flyer is a jpg, so clicking the link goes nowhere.  If we get more information, we'll pass it on.

Studio/Gang Architects, Chinese American Service League,
with titanium shingles like the scales of a dragon's skin

I have no idea what a lecture called �What Mammals Want� will be about.  Almost certainly it will nothing to do with my own musings.  But when an architect declares they are going to give a talk that has neither �Form�, nor �Autonomy�, �LEED�, �Theory�, �Parametricism� or even �Architecture� in its title,  and it references humans only by their parent class, well, that's a very interesting proposition.

Gang was last year's recipient of the U of C's Jesse L. Rosenberg Medal, recognizing achievement �deemed of great benefit to humanity.�  Yet, Gang will be at the Logan Center Performance Hall, 915 East 60th, at 5:15 p.m. on Monday the 28th, telling us - not about humanity - but about the Mammals.  And what they want.  And what it might have to do with us.

CAF's 2012 Patrons of the Year: a Kitchen (Inspirational), a Rush (and Bill Kurtis's hips), a Tower (melange included), and the "Blood and Guts" of the City

click images for larger view

Rush didn't set out to create an architectural icon here in the city.  Hopefully that's what it will become , but it's not what we set out to do. We set out to administer the best health care for our patients.

That was Mike Lamont, the AVP of Capital Projects, talking about the new Rush University Medical Center, picture above.  Rush and their architects, Perkins+Will, were among six projects honored at the Chicago Architecture Foundation's 2012 Patron of the Year awards luncheon at the Palmer House on Wednesday.

"Having had two hips replaced at Rush Presbyterian, I helped pay for it.  Money well spent," joked newsman Bill Kurtis, MC for the event. [You can see some of our photos of Rush here.]

While architectural awards usually go to the designers, these awards, as the name implies, go to the people who create the commissions and pay the bills.   ("Was the Mann Center named after the Mann who writes the novels, Mr. Ormandy?" "No, madam, it was named after the Mann who writes the checks.")

Steven Stein, Bill Kurtis

"Good architecture requires more than a good architect," said Steven Stein,  Senior Partner of event host Stein Ray LLP. "It requires a great client - a risk-taker."

How the client/architect relationship can create superior buildings was a central topic of the acceptance speeches, including one from Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, the architects of another winner, the University of Chicago's new Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts . . .

Good buildings can only happen when there is a good client.  Great buildings can only happen when the client has vision and a commitment that exceeds beyond reasonableness.  We thank the University of Chicago, who along with the family of David and Reva Logan were unreasonable in their belief that a building could change the lives of students and those in their community  . . .

Williams and Tsien's statement was read by Logan Center Executive Director Bill Michael, who added, "Like many of the other clients in the room, I will never admit with my colleagues to being unreasonable.  On the other hand, I do believe that great buildings come from collaboration and the Logan Center is one such building."  [You can see our tour of the Logan Center and read the interview with Williams and Tsien here.]

"The architecture is really about the journey of discovery," added University Architect Steven Weisenthal, "which is in many ways what the melange of materials, volumes, spaces, vistas is - you never know what you're going to find next."

"There is a saying," said Carol Ross Barney, architect of the third winner, the new Morgan Street CTA Station,  "that I would like to debunk totally here today .  The saying that 'it's good enough for government.'  Because I'm going to tell you how gratifying it is to work with CDOT, work with the people at the City of Chicago .  They're devoted; they're dedicated .  This - it's not even a building -  it's infrastructure; it's the blood and guts of our city." Added Chicago Department of Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein, "We have a small but very experienced team and they work very hard and I think more important they work really smart."  He cited the role of the station in supporting the accelerating revitalization of its Fulton Market neighborhood. [You can see our photo review of the Morgan Street Station here.]

from left: Chicago Architecture Foundation President Lynn Osmond, the top of Steve Stein's head, Carol Ross Barney, Gabe Klein

Shannon Stewart, CEO of Inspiration Corporation, thanked Larry Kearns of Wheeler Kearns Architects for the success of the fourth winner, the Inspiration Kitchens in Garfield Park, supporting a mission of  "helping people who are homeless or low income getting culinary skills and then moving to the food industry and in addition to that, it also is a place that we provide free meals to people who are working but who are still struggling to make the ends meet.  Larry Kearns and Chris Spencer. . . are awesome architects. and they made it easy for us to be good patrons because they really led us to great choices and making a beautiful building."

Inspiration Kitchens, courtesy Wheeler Kearns Architects

There were also two honorable mention awards,  for the Black Ensemble Theater from Morris Architects Planners. . .

Black Ensemble Theater, courtesy Morris Architects Planners

. . . and the   Instituto Health Sciences Career Academy from JGMA and Ghafari.

Instituto Health Sciences Career Academy High School, courtesy JGMA

The awards were determined by a blue-ribbon jury chaired by Stanley Tigerman and including Joseph Burns, Roberta Feldman, Reed Kreloff, Mike McCaskey, Cathleen McGuigan, Steve Stein and John Ronan.

Even the 19 nominees that did not win awards - from the new City Target on State, the Roosevelt University Tower. Burberry on Michigan, the Museum of Broadcast Communications, and the Old Town School of Folk Music -  would seem to prove that enlightened patronage, the kind that actually enriches and extends the glory of Chicago Architecture, is far from impossible.  If only the builders of all those deadening residential towers could take the hint.